Armed Forces: Land War Readiness

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord West of Spithead
Monday 20th May 2024

(6 months, 1 week ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Howell of Guildford Portrait Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
- Hansard - -

I apologise to the admiral; I am sure his time will come. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the Government website details on our reserve situation are curiously uninformative? They do not make a clear distinction between the regular reserves and the Army reserves, which are two separate concepts and have been for the past 10 years. They do not make clear how many of our units are high-readiness or how many are combat ready. Will he encourage his colleagues to provide clearer information online about the state of the reserves, and give us more information on how we are developing a new relationship between our reserves and regular troops of a kind that is being rapidly developed by several of our NATO allies?